UK doctors strike for first time in decades

Talks between striking British doctors and the government are due to resume later this week following the first strike in more than 40 years on Tuesday.

The mediator in the negotiations told POLITICO they plan to reconvene talks either Thursday or Friday, with a date scheduled once this first action ends.

But any talk of reconciliation could not be seen on Tuesday, with both sides turning up the rhetoric in a dispute over pay and working conditions.

NHS England said in a lunchtime statement that 39 percent of junior doctors, out of a possible 26,000 scheduled to work, reported for their day shift. It’s the first of three planned actions in the coming weeks. Combining junior doctors, other doctors and consultants, 71 percent of the total hospital medical workforce attended work on the first strike day.

More than 4,000 non-emergency operations and procedures were cancelled, the government said.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt made a brief media appearance on BBC News at 2 p.m. London time, after being criticized for not commenting earlier.

He gave no sign that the government is going to back down, describing the dispute as “completely unnecessary.” “We have tried really hard to make the case for a seven-day NHS, we have been arguing this with the BMA [British Medical Association] now for over three years.”

On Monday, Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn said he backed the doctors, and suggested physicians would leave England if they don’t get a decent deal from the British government.

The NHS enjoys wide support, and a BBC-Ipsos poll out this week found two-thirds of the public backed the strike, as long as emergency services are exempt. This first action does exclude emergency care, though a third strike action planned for next month would be a full walkout. A second strike is scheduled on January 26, and a third on February 10.

But the strike may already be souring any new talks.

Doctors fear that the threat of imposition of the new contracts may return. Before Christmas, the BMA, representing the junior doctors, suspended strikes and returned to the negotiating table when the government agreed to remove the threat of imposition.

“But the government does have the right to impose certain contracts,” a BMA spokesman told POLITICO. The threat of imposition “is suspended; it has not gone away,” he said.

Tom Fairchild, a health department spokesman, said: “Previously, with the … conciliatory talks, as part of that … we agreed to remove the threat of imposition. Clearly we are in a different position today with the strikes ongoing.”

Battle of words

Both sides ramped up their spin machines on Tuesday. The latest letter from the NHS to doctors, tweeted by the NHS, defends the 11 percent increase offered to base pay. However, doctors say they will work longer for less overall because of cuts to overtime.

In central London, striking doctors erected two fake betting shops, called “Jeremy’s Punt,” inviting people to “bet now” on being “treated by an overworked doctor,” or on “preventable medical error,” referring to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

Trending on Twitter this morning were some reasons why people support the strike: #Isupportthestrike and #JuniorDoctorsStrike, including patients in hospitals whose operations had been cancelled.

The action is the first for the nation’s doctors since November 1975. It comes years into a cost-cutting campaign under Cameron that has met increasing resistance from health care workers. Only doctors in England are taking action. Their colleagues in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have all taken a different stance over the contract negotiations.